Netflix and Comcast waged an unusually public war of words this week, escalating tensions between two companies that depend on each other for customers.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings publicly opposed Comcast's proposed acquisition of Time Warner Cable, and one of his executives accused Comcast of "double dipping."

Comcast fired back, saying Netflix, which is raising subscription fees, is being dishonest with its members.

This rare, yet entertaining, slap fight between two corporations strikes at the heart of the net neutrality debate, which took a turn in January when a federal appeals court struck down the Federal Communications Commission's authority to order Internet service providers to treat all Web traffic as equal.

The next month, Netflix agreed to pay Comcast to ensure that Netflix subscribers received faster, more reliable service on Comcast broadband.

Netflix's growing online TV show and movie streams account for a major portion of Web traffic. That content is an important selling point for Comcast, the nation's largest cable TV company, as it tries to expand online. But moving so much data is also a burden on the company's infrastructure - and Internet service providers want others to help cover those costs.

During Netflix's quarterly earnings call with analysts Monday, Hastings said, "We felt we had no choice" but to sign the agreement because service on Comcast had been "declining rapidly" in the prior six months. Despite the deal, he said, his company opposes Comcast's pending $45 billion acquisition of rival Time Warner Cable because the combination would create a monopoly.

Jennifer Khoury, Comcast's senior vice president for corporate and digital communications in public policy, quickly returned fire with a blog post accusing Netflix of twisting the facts.

Countering Netflix

She said it was Netflix that approached Comcast with the deal because the Los Gatos video-streaming powerhouse wanted to cut costs by bypassing third-party wholesale firms that transport data from Netflix servers to Internet service providers. Companies like Comcast are only responsible for the "last mile" - putting content on customers' screens. Third-party firms do the heavy lifting in between.

"This arrangement was thus about Netflix exercising its market power to extract a more favorable arrangement directly from Comcast than what Netflix had been paying for through third party providers," Khoury wrote.

"Netflix is free to express its opinions. But they should be factually based," Khoury said. "And Netflix should be transparent that its opinion is not about protecting the consumer or about Net Neutrality. Rather, it's about improving Netflix's business model by shifting costs that it has always borne to all users of the Internet and not just to Netflix customers."

On Thursday, Netflix fired another salvo when Ken Florance, vice president of content delivery, published a blog post accusing Comcast of mismanaging connections with those third-party firms, causing the infrastructure to "clog up, slowing delivery of movies and TV shows to Netflix users."

Florance, in essence, said Comcast was trying to have its cake and eat it, too.

'Double dipping'

"Comcast is not charging Netflix for transit service," he wrote. "It is charging Netflix for access to its subscribers. Comcast also charges its subscribers for access to Internet content providers like Netflix. In this way, Comcast is double dipping by getting both its subscribers and Internet content providers to pay for access to each other."

Echoing defenders of net neutrality, who argue that companies like Comcast should not be allowed to speed up, slow down or block content from one company in favor of another, Florance said Netflix is "very concerned" a combined Comcast-Time Warner Cable "will place toll taking above consumer interests and will use their combined market power to the detriment of a vibrant and efficient Internet."

Again, Khoury quickly shot back with a blog post calling Netflix's arguments full of "distortions and inaccuracies." She contended that Netflix undermined its own service while pinning the blame on Comcast.

"Netflix's argument is a House of Cards," she wrote, riffing on Netflix's big original hit series.

Khoury said that before Netflix signed its deal with Comcast, the company tried to reroute its streaming traffic elsewhere, which was responsible for the slow-downs. She said no Internet service provider "in the country has been a stronger supporter of the Open Internet than Comcast."

"While it's understandable for Netflix to try to make all Internet users pay for its costs of doing business (as opposed to just their customers), the company should at least be honest about its cost-shifting strategy," she said.